A Little Sunshine

The weather is unstable, the barometer rises and falls. I slumber in the reclining chair because it’s too uncomfortable to lay down still. I hear the jingling of bells hung on the door, that will someday aid my new puppy in alerting me he needs to go outside, as TheMan comes in from feeding and caring for the animals, as I am still unable to do it myself. He throws hay and checks waterers for my old horse, Mister, the little band of hair sheep and their lambs, gives SushiMoo, my last milk cow her grain, feeds the chickens and ducks and takes care of the band of leppie calves in the corral beyond the high rock wall. I hear the cornflakes bounce off the sides of his bowl as he prepares himself some breakfast, then gives me a kiss goodbye and he and his faithful Scottie head off to work on whatever the ranch needs him to do today. He works 7 days a week because that is ranch life. There is always something that needs doing and cows don’t take weekends off. It’s hard work but it’s a good life. He’ll come back for lunch and then for dinner and if I am not able, he fixes that and does the dishes as well. It wasn’t always like this, I remember working 3 jobs and trying to take care of my family. A few hours a day as a bookkeeper, returning home to ride colts and give lessons, then do his paperwork at night for the small company we started making livestock panels and kennels. Housecleaning, laundry, dinner and dishes were always needing attention with four kids in the house. He always pitched in to help where he could. Now things are different. I have so much I want to do, but cannot. One of the hard things about this disease is not knowing from one day to the next if I will be able to function. I’m grateful for my new knee and contemplate the love my family showed me the many weeks I was in their care while recovering as they selflessly fit me into their schedules at doctors, hospitals, home while they all still had to work their full time  jobs and take care of their own children and homes. It is the flip-side of this disease, that I would never wish to be disabled or reliant on my kids, not be a burden, but because I often am, I’ve no doubt of their love. Through my travails they standby and lift me up and rather than bitter because of my pain, my heart is full. 

I marvel at the faithfulness of God and my family to one so unworthy...because I do feel unworthy, unable to do my part anymore, unable to help out, instead always needing. It’s not a comfortable place for me and I don’t do it with the grace of someone like Joni Tada or others whose struggles are greater and more insurmountable than my own. But I am grateful, that He has shown me I don’t have to be worthy to be loved. He promises that over and over, in His book to me, and His work on my behalf, and it is illustrated to me through my family and I am awed, all at once both humbled and grateful.

The sun is out this morning and with some difficulty, I step out on the back porch and hear the call of the mourning doves and the chirping of the smaller birds as they fill their little chests and hearts with the fresh spring air. The ducks watch me covertly (they think...but I can see them there on the lawn, still as statues). 

The warmth of morning shines down from the East and I can see the garden slowly coming back to life, with all His promise to me that “Weeping is for a night but joy comes in the morning” 

(Psalm 30:5). The green swordlike blades of the iris have pressed through the rocky soil and will soon bear flowers with falls of bright yellow, purple and one sky blue. The long canes of climbing rosebushes are already covered with small, shiny green leaves as they hide under the tumbleweeds and mustard that always ends up in our yard along the wall after the harsh winter winds. The lawn is greening up again, the fruit trees have flowered and promise sweet juicy apricots, apples and peaches later in the year. I notice a small nest in the big tree by the house,  probably from last year. Amazing how something as small and delicate as a bird can create a nest durable enough to get through one of our winters. Another small miracle. Blue and purple pansies have burst forth in the half barrel by the door from the seeds their parent plants dropped last year and the perennial plants and flowers peek their heads out of the soil, pregnant with promise. 

It's still chilly out so I step back inside and my eye is captured by the few houseplants that helped carry me through a long winter indoors. Even those have been a gift beyond measure, evidence that there is life all around me and it's not all about me.

I peruse the living room, plotting a plan of attack, should my body allow it. The dust lies thick on the furniture, both a result of neglect and living on a ranch in a 100 yr old house with windows and doors that, while still closed, will generously allow the wind in to blow my hair in my face. One of the perks of ranch life is that you never lack something to do. There is always housework, no matter how much of it you may have done the day before, and in the unlikely event it should stay done for a day, there are always the cabins and employee housing the boss’ wife needs help with, since people are in and out of here all the time. But I am tethered to our little old rock and concrete house, at least for the moment. I eye the new dog crate that stands by the sofa and simultaneously feel a stab of sorrow over the loss of my wonderful old friend Cider and a flush of hope over the new puppy that will be coming home with me this spring. I imagine him as he might be, looking forward to teaching him all that I taught Cider and then some, consider the laughter he will undoubtedly bring back into my life and the companionship that will come with it. Soon the hummingbirds will be back and the butterflies. 

Until then, I will rely on my short and infrequent visits from the Maremmas, who warmly give me nose bumps and tiny doggie kisses, moan to show their appreciation as I rub their ears then, quickly satisfied, lay by the door anxious for someone to let them back out with their sheep. 

I opt to fight some of the mats on Mr Potamus in lieu of cleaning house. He always manages to pick up the worst kind of burrs and stickers to wind up in his long fur and become impossibly tangled. It's difficult to attack them with just one hand, but I manage to get most of it done and he lays all nice and fluffy again on the floor which is now messier than before. Better done before the big cleaning than after.

There is much to look forward to, and while waiting, I dance, if only in my mind. Life is good. God is good.

Contented

There have been some nasty low temperatures recently, down to -25 F with windchill, and a bit of snow. With the very cold temperatures on the mountain, our snow is scant, as it falls very finely and doesn’t build up to much most of the time, unlike the warm, wet snows we used to get at our  old home in the Tehachapi Mtn range of California where it wasn’t unusual to get 2 foot of fresh snow overnight.

Most of the snow that was here melted off yesterday, so we slogged thru the mud in our boots, moving calves and heavy, pregnant goats into the barn, relocating sheep, filling waters, and piling bedding in the animal shelters before the next storm.

We very NEARLY got a shelter put up for the weaned orphan calves I am keeping as future nurse cows. I had to find the particular 3 calves I wanted, out of 350 that were being moved from the large sheep pasture behind our house to a larger field a couple of miles away.

The three calves were a boogered up from being pushed into the corral with all the others by the cowboys but luckily, they remembered my bottle-feeding them last winter and I was able to pick them out of the herd after 15 or 20 minutes of searching and they followed me into a ‘safe’ corral. The cowboys offered to put eartags on them, so I could leave them with the other calves and find them easily, but the big and unwieldy tags make them all look like Elton John to me, and I am not a fan. I opted to bring them into one of our corrals and care for them by hand again.

 Of the three, one was our first orphan of last February, “Chewy”; another, the calf delivered C-section by the kids with a pocket knife, from a dead cow, “Rio”; and the third was the first leppie (orphan calf) we brought back from last Cowcamp, “Cholula”.

Cowcamp is a two week long affair camping out in the desert in early spring, to find all the cows who have wintered out there and bring them back to the main ranch. It is only 30 miles to Wildcat Canyon, where Cow Camp takes place but it takes 1 ½ hours to drive there as it is pretty rugged. It takes about a month or so to get all the cows pushed back home again, but the bulk of the gathering is done during the 2 weeks we stay there. Last year was tough, we were still bringing cows home in June.

Cowcamp accommodations are extremely rustic, but everyone looks forward to it. It can be hot, dry, windy, wet, or a blinding white blizzard all the same week…in fact on the same day, so lots of layers, gloves, slickers and hats are recommended. It’s ALWAYS cold at night and in the old drafty shacks we sleep in. There is a wooden outhouse that faces away from camp, as it has no door. A semi-trailer has been fashioned as a cook shack and is hauled out there and hooked to a propane tank and a generator and we pile in there after hours of long, hard riding to warm up by a propane stove and eat whatever can be prepared over a burner. There is an absence of luxury items we often take for granted… like showers… but its cold enough not to notice. On a nice day, one can get a 5-gallon bucket of water and warm it up to wash with.

I made soup and French bread yesterday and invited the ranch hands to dinner. I didn’t realize at the time that the work crew from across the state had returned, so I wound up with 9 mouths to feed. I figured there was enough soup…just barely, and I was short on both ingredients and time to increase the batch, so I threw together 2 more loaves of French bread. This should have been easily done, but the oven I use to rise the bread already had bread baking in it, so I carried the bowl of half risen bread into the other room by the new heat stove. It slipped from my hands and with a jarring halt, hit the floor, right-side-up. The dough however, was now flat as a pancake. I turned a small heating fan on it and it eventually re-rose to ¾ of its intended height and I baked it. It came out well, exactly as the 9 walked in the front door. There was 4 ounces of soup left over after everyone had eaten their second helpings and headed home.

Waking up this morning, I looked out the window onto a pristine white snowfall. This little old rock house is cozy when the wind doesn’t blow, and it’s much like living inside one of those little snowglobes. Snow is falling in large, heavy flakes and building on the walls and fences outside. Dolly’s fancy outfit has a 2” covering of white across the top of her back as she and Emma contentedly work the molasses lick. They are predicting 6 inches today.

The pups are off ‘who-knows-where’, likely having a good time. They brought home an enormous leg bone last night. We don’t mind, as they are always from “dead stock” and coyote kills. It helps deter the predators as the pups make their presence known and steal the bounty. We have the biggest bone yard in Harney County, I believe. My pups are diligent workers.

I filled calf bottles and headed to the big barn to feed the two baby calves that are in there, along with the goats. It’s time to start working with the goats on getting into the milking stanchion and allowing me to handle them. Placing grain in a little bucket and letting them out one at a time, they happily pop up onto the platform and I close the head-catch. I slowly rub my hand down their hind legs and around their udder, which they are very ticklish about, kicking and squatting and doing all manner of gymnastics to escape my hand, but the love of sweet feed wins out and they continue eating while arguing with me. I love a greedy animal. It makes life so much easier! Eventually they will settle down and ignore me and milking will be much easier this January, when they finally kid. They are both ‘first fresheners’ so I will be keeping a close eye on them in case they have trouble.

I head back to check the sheep. We nearly took the ram back to town, to the lady we borrowed him from, but I noticed some serious romancing going on, so clearly the girls didn’t conceive after the first breeding. It looks like he will be here through New Years. I am looking forward to spring lambs, baby goats, and calves, but for now, with the warmth of the house, the smell of blackberry vanilla soap curing on my racks and the beauty of the winter white world outside, I am content.